ACCESS TO WHARF

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 44, 21 February 1942, Page 9

ACCESS TO WHARF

CONSTABLE DECEIVED

A fine of £10 was imposed on Sidney Bernard Hammersley, an electrician, by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court yesterday, for gaining access to a wharf by deceiving a constable.

Sub-Inspector D. J. Hewitt, who prosecuted, said that Hammersley, who was employed by Cable and Company, obtained a worker's pass to go on to the wharf on the understanding that he was going to work. As a matter of fact, he went down in his car to ,take an officer off a ship to the races at Otaki. He actually went to Otaki.

Evidence was given that the defendant's pass was returned to Cable and Company's office without any hours shown on it.

Constable W. Fright said the defendant asked him if he could' tell him

if anything was .going to happen, as he wanted to get an excuse and did not want "to do a couple of pounds."

Mr. R. I. M. Sutherland, who appeared for the defendant, said that one of his duties was to work on every overseas ship on which his employers had had work to do. The chief officer of a ship had approached him for a loan of his car, and he had consented. The previous day he had been told to look at some boxing on degaussing equipment. It was merely an inspection job, without work attached to it, and his intention was to do that when he took the car down.

The defendant, in the witness box, said lie did not go to Otaki at all. He was three feet from the job he had to inspect when a Customs officer investigated petrol that was being put into his car by a member of the crew:

The Magistrate said he did not think the defendant had had any intention of working that day. It would not cost him £2, but £10. He did not make it any better by coming to Court and practically perjuring himself.